Recently I finished playing through the last Tomb Raider game, aptly titled Tomb Raider. This was the 2013 release and shows us a younger Lara Croft, one who is quite innocent and naive, She is also a lot more realistically proportioned compared to previous iterations of the character as well. While Lara has the archaeological skills, she doesn't have the life experiences yet, of course, all this changes over the course of about 30 hours. Now, I'm not going to pull apart the game, that's not the point of this post. What I want so discuss is the progression of the character through the game.
In most RPG's, the character is an extension of the player, their agent in that world if you like. You guide them, you interact with them, you make decisions for them and then they act those decisions out. But they don't grow, they don't change over the course of the game. This is understandable of course given that the character is an extension of the player, and it's up to the player to "grow" over the course of the narrative, be that growth into the light or into the dark a-la Paragon or Renegade paths in Bioware's Mass Effect series, or their Knights of the Old Republic games. This growth is then reflected in the dialogue options open to the character, but the character doesn't really change.
There may be some superficial indicators, like a glowing halo or red/black veins to show that the player has chosen to walk to path in the light or the dark, Tomb Raider did something else, something that may have been seen as a potential risk, but one that I think paid off in spades. They took the growth away from the player, and gave it back to the character. Now, while this seems to go against the current trend, it actually makes a lot of sense, not only in this case, but as something that I think should be done a lot more often.
We know Lara, not only from the previous games, but also from the movies, cosplayers and pop culture in general. While some of her assets have certainly commented on and overplayed, there is no doubt that as a character she is a strong lead. And gender doesn't come into it. And perhaps that's why Square Enix and Crystal Dynamix decided to go this direction. With players already knowing that the character has a history, a back story and a personality, they could impose that onto and within the narrative. By making it part of the process of the story, showing Lara starting off and her development through the game into the survivor we know from the past, you develop a different but just as strong attachment to the character.
In some ways, it plays much more like a movie or novel. You are introduced to the characters, both main and supporting, as you progress through the narrative you learn more about all of them, but you start to see the effects of the trials being faced by the protagonist impacting them more. These changes manifest in small ways, changes in speech patterns, changes in viewpoint, changes in methods. Where early on Lara wants to talk to the other people on the island, to reason with them, it becomes apparent that's not going to happen and she changes accordingly. Through each trial we see Lara become a little harder, a little more ruthless, but she doesn't lose her humanity. She's dealing with betrayal, her friends being killed or kidnapped, her own survival. Yet her humanity remains in tact, even strengthened perhaps.
By the end of the game we have seen Lara evolve from a naive girl into the hardened adventurer we all know and love. And I wish more games would take this approach. Give us a character who grows. They will still be an extension of the player in the world, but make the world impact them, and through them, us. Give us a reason to love, or hate, the character, to invest in them for their own sake and not just so we have a shiny achievement to add to our collection.
